Tag Archives: employment

Part 1: The Self-Employed Aspie

The majority of people with Asperger’s are either unemployed or underemployed. For an adult aspie, this is a scary statistic. It’s easy to hear it and feel like the deck is stacked against you.

In some ways it is. A job interview is heavily weighted in favor of social skills. Employees are generally expected to be team players. Often, getting ahead in the workplace is as much a matter of who you know as what you know. All jobs have rules, both written and unwritten, and employees are expected to follow them.

So much of what happens in a workplace is second nature to neurotypicals and a complete mystery to the average aspie.

Or at least I assume it is. My last workplace was a McDonald’s. I was eighteen.The expectations were low. As long as you didn’t steal from your register or hold the place up at gunpoint they didn’t fire you. I’m not exaggerating. Those were the only two things people were fired for in the year that I worked there.

So if you’re looking for advice about getting or keeping a traditional job–with or without Asperger’s–I can’t help you.

But if you’re curious about being self-employed, I have a lot of experience. I’ve been the owner or co-owner of a business since I was 19. I lucked into the first business–it was something my husband started around the time we got married. It made sense for me to help him out rather than going out and getting a job. Continue reading The Self-Employed Aspie→

First, I need to say that I hate the phrase “special interest.” It sounds demeaning or patronizing. All I can think of is a doddering old great aunt looking over my shoulder at my stamp collection and saying, “well, isn’t that special.”

I’d much rather use “obsession,” or if that’s too extreme, then “specialized interest,” which is more precisely descriptive. But the term most often used in the ASD community is special interest so I’ll use that here, cringing every time I type it.

Okay, with that bit of editorializing out of the way, we can talk about a topic dear to most aspies’ hearts: the special interest. According to the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome, having an “encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus” is a core symptom of AS.

You’ll notice there are two parts to that criteria: intensity or focus. A special interest can be an intense interest in a broad subject (architecture) or a narrowly focused interest (mid-12th century Cistercian monasteries). Generally, narrowly focused interests are also intense, but a special interest doesn’t have to be stereotypically narrow to qualify.

You can look at the list and think, “but everyone has hobbies, what’s so special about yours?” Like much of what differentiates an Asperger’s trait from a general personality quirk, the answer is the degree to which the trait is present.

For example, when I took up running, I didn’t just go out and jog a few times a week. I read books about training for marathons. I found workout plans online and joined a training site to get personalized drills. I learned about Fartlek and track workouts and running technique. I signed up for road races. Ten years later, I spend more on running clothes and shoes than on everyday clothes. I use a heart rate monitor and a distance tracker to record my workouts. If I go on vacation, I pack all of running stuff. I don’t just like to run occasionally; running is an integral part of my life. It fills a very specific need.

A visual representation of some of my special interests over the years

Shelter from the Storm

That’s a key differentiator between a run-of the-mill hobby and an Aspergerian special interest. Spending time engaged in a special interest fulfills a specific need for aspies. It’s more than just a pleasant way to pass the time. For me, indulging in a special interest is how I recharge myself. It’s comforting. It allows me to completely immerse myself in something that intensely interests me while tuning out the rest of the world. If you have a favorite movie that you rewatch or a book you like to return to again and again, it’s a bit like that.

Special Interests Gone Wild

The danger in special interests is that they can become consuming. They can take over every conversation, every free minute of the day, every thought, if you let them. They can be a refuge or a hiding place.

There are days when I’m so engrossed in writing and/or work (I’ve made one of my special interests into a career) that I’ll happily spend eight or ten or twelve hours at the computer. I put dinner on the stove and then forget about it until I smell it burning. The sun sets and hours later I realize the house is pitch dark. If the dog didn’t nudge my elbow when it was time for her to go out or be fed, I would forget that she existed.

Clearly this can be a problem.

Another problem can arise if the object of a special interest is socially unacceptable. When my husband read my list of special interests, he jokingly added himself to it. He was being funny, but sometimes aspies do take on another person as a special interest. If that person is a celebrity, the aspie can safely spend hours learning about and admiring that person from afar. But if the person is someone in the aspie’s life, the special interest may be expressed as unwanted attention, harassment or stalking. (You can read an excellent first person account of this issue here: Love or Obsession: When a Person Becomes an Aspie’s Special Interest.)

So while most special interests are “harmless,” if an interest involves behavior that is illegal, taboo or a threat to your or someone else’s health or wellbeing, it may be necessary to seek help in redirecting your attention to a safer alternative.

How Does an Aspie Find a Special Interest?

Special interests tend to find us, rather than the other way around. I have no idea what has drawn me to many of my special interests over the years. Most are things that I have an intense but inexplicable fascination with.

Like writing, reading, and martial arts, my interest in abandoned places and things has been with me since childhood. But other interests have come and gone over the years. A special interest often arises suddenly, becomes intense for a period (months or years) then disappears just as quickly. My collecting-related interests from childhood were like that. I would spend hours organizing, sorting and rearranging my coins, stamps and baseball cards. I’d talk my parents into driving me to collector’s shows, my tattered value guide tucked under my arm, bouncing with excitement at the prospect of filling a hole in one of my collections.

Then, when my interest in one of my collections suddenly dried up, I’d pack my binders and reference books and collecting paraphernalia away in the closet where they’d sit collecting dust while I spent hours comparing annual editions of the Guinness Book of World Records to see which records had changed or clipping articles about M*A*S*H from magazines so I could add them to my scrapbook.

How Much is Too Much?

Special interests are important to most aspies’ happiness and perhaps to our mental health. If I go through a period where I can’t engage in my special interests, I get agitated and spend a lot of time thinking about what I’d like to be doing. For me, and for a lot of aspies, a special interest is our preferred way of de-stressing, recharging and just plain enjoying ourselves.

But like any good thing, it’s possible to overdo it and veer into unhealthy territory. I think it’s safe to say that a special interest has become too consuming when it keeps you from taking care of daily responsibilities (school, work, hygiene), negatively impacts your health (lack of sleep, poor eating habits), or has a significant negative impact on loved ones (limited social contact, financial burden).

However, there is one case where you get to pursue your special interest all day, five days a week, and society gives you an approving thumbs up: when you turn a special interest into a career. Suddenly, you’re no longer a geek who knows too much about C++ programming, production switchers or eighteenth century fashion. You’re a computer programmer, an audio equipment repair technician or a museum curator. Big difference, right?

I’ve been lucky enough to do this twice, making it perfectly acceptable to dedicate most of my waking hours to a favorite subject. I’ve read and heard about a lot of aspies who’ve done the same with their lifelong special interests. It’s certainly not possible for everyone with Asperger’s to turn a special interest into a job or career, but when it does work out that way, you get to be one of the lucky people who earns a living doing what you love.

—–

For another perspective on having a special interest feels, check out Focusing on Special Interests by Jeannie Davide-Rivera who blogs about Asperger’s at Aspie Writer. I especially enjoyed learning about her first special interest, because we shared some favorite baseball players in common as children.

What People Are Reading

Yesterday I ventured way way way outside my comfort zone to record an interview on Autism Spectrum Radio. The host, Rob Haupt, asked some great questions and was easy to talk to. You can listen to our conversation here. Rob does a short intro and then the rest of show (about 35 minutes) is our conversation.

My friends Ibby Grace And Amy Sequenzia are editing an anthology titled “Typed Words, Loud Voices”, a collection of works by people who type to talk always or sometimes. They’re looking for essays, poems, stories or whatever form of expression you’d like to share your message in.

As some of you noticed yesterday, I’ve updated the blog theme to add a little color. Maybe down the road I’ll experiment with some of the new features (like this one that allows short “aside” posts). It’ll take some getting used to, I know.

And yes the remodeling is an indication of just how bored I am with all the not writing I’m doing.

Triathlon training is chugging along nicely – 3 weeks to go and I feel great, if a bit worn out. The garden is producing lots of cucumbers and tomatoes, a few eggplants and peppers. And for some reason I’m the only person on earth who can’t grown squash? With the exception of one green squash a couple of weeks ago, all I’m getting are tiny little squash that turn yellow and wither.

Besides a renewed obsession with The Sims, that’s about all that’s new around these parts.